The BEST episodes directed by Martin Dennis
#1 - Dad's Birthday
Friday Night Dinner - Season 6 - Episode 4
Dad has the birthday blues, and, to make matters worse, Horrible Grandma turns up uninvited. Can Jim's magic help?
#2 - The Females
Friday Night Dinner - Season 6 - Episode 6
Adam and Jonny bring their 'females' home to meet the parents. Cue an overexcited Mum and an extremely embarrassing Dad.
#3 - The Cage
Friday Night Dinner - Season 6 - Episode 5
Jim sets up a giant dog cage for Milson in the Goodmans' living room, and Aunty Val's got a hot date with a 'sex robot'.
#4 - The Au Pair
Friday Night Dinner - Season 6 - Episode 3
The family's cream-tea-obsessed former au pair pays the Goodmans a surprise visit. But there's nothing sweet about this reunion.
#5 - The Caravan
Friday Night Dinner - Season 6 - Episode 1
Dad's bought a grotty caravan. Jim's got a new dog. And the boys have new 'females' - but can they bear to tell Mum?
#6 - Pornography
Men Behaving Badly - Season 4 - Episode 3
Gary organises a dinner party which proves to be a total disaster while Tony's new girlfriend tells him that he'll have to get rid of his collection of soft-porn magazines or she'll leave him.
#7 - Naked
Coupling - Season 2 - Episode 8
As Jeff's 30th birthday approaches, his new boss Julia Davis questions the girls about whether one should kiss a junior work colleague, while Jeff admits to the lads that he had a close encounter of the Nat (Nose Avoidance Tilt) kind in a stationery cupboard at work.
#8 - The End of the Line
Coupling - Season 2 - Episode 9
Steve and Susan's relationship is drifting into a new phase. They are beginning to get on each other's nerves. A bizarre set of misunderstandings brings on a crisis.
#9 - Cardigan
Men Behaving Badly - Season 5 - Episode 5
Gary is upset when he's mistaken for George at the office. He decides to prove that he isn't becoming "middle aged" by taking Dorothy, Tony and Deborah to an all-night rave. The evening is a complete disaster!
#10 - Sex, Death & Nudity
Coupling - Season 1 - Episode 3
Jeff explains to the guys about 'The Giggle Loop': the danger that the more you try to suppress laughter in important silences, the harder you want to laugh. Jane's aunt has died, and she wants Steve to come to the funeral, pretending to be her boyfriend still. Susan invites herself, and so Patrick must come as her 'boyfriend', and all six end up going.
#11 - Unconditional Sex
Coupling - Season 3 - Episode 3
Jeff is still trying to decide whether he should cheat on his girlfriend Julia with Wilma, or not. While his friends try to help him, Jeff is no match in this debate for "devil woman" Wilma. She knows every argument that Susan (the expert in getting her own way) has ever used. Jeff paints himself into a terrifyingly extreme conversational corner, until he blurts out that the reason he can't have sex with Wilma is that his girlfriend is dead...
#12 - Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps
Coupling - Season 3 - Episode 7
Sally is terrified that she might be pregnant, so she takes a pregnancy test and asks the other girls to do the same so that she knows what a negative result looks like. In her fluster she gets the tests muddled up. One of the girls is pregnant, but which one?
#13 - Inferno
Coupling - Season 1 - Episode 4
Steve is plunged into total panic when he suspects that Susan has found one of his porn videos. To fill the embarrassing silence, he tells her he loves her, but Susan is well-aware that he was merely panicking. Susan invites all the friends over for a dinner party. Jane brings her therapist, Jill, who everyone assumes is there as Jane's date. In front of everyone, Susan insists that Steve justify his passion for the offending porn film, Lesbian Spank Inferno.
#14 - Under Pressure
The Job Lot - Season 1 - Episode 1
Manager Trish is struggling to keep things running smoothly. She has a world-of-work seminar to run, the temp is late, and difficult employee Angela returns, fresh from winning a tribunal. Karl is the only member of staff Trish can rely on, but now even he's reached the end of his tether.
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
#15 - Army
The Job Lot - Season 1 - Episode 2
Trish attempts to boost Brownall Job Centre’s figures by calling in the army. Sergeant Steve Fox finds himself on the receiving end of a very different kind of interest though. George goes undercover to try and trap a man who’s signing on and working as a decorator, but things don’t quite go to plan.
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
#16 - Busy
The Job Lot - Season 1 - Episode 3
Following the sudden closure of a local factory, the job centre is inundated with newly unemployed jobseekers. With everyone working flat out, Trish is forced to help but she struggles with the computer and reveals a shocking, somewhat disturbing, secret.
Watch Now:Amazon
#17 - Dressed
Coupling - Season 2 - Episode 7
Patrick has boasted to his business associate, Ivan, amongst other things that he has a wife, and when Ivan comes to the bar, Patrick presses Sally and then Susan into pretending to be his wife. Things turn awkward when Steve proposes to Susan while she is pretending to be faithfully married to Patrick. Meanwhile, Jane is invited on a dinner date by Bill, a man she chatted up in a pub, but makes an unfortunate choice of clothing for the evening.
Watch Now:Apple TV
#18 - The Girl with Two Breasts
Coupling - Season 1 - Episode 5
Jeff and co. can't take their eyes of a beautiful stranger in their local bar. And the girl can't take her eyes off Jeff. Jeff goes over to talk to her, only to discover that she doesn't speak a word of English, which to Jeff of course is quite a relief. Her interpreter, Alice, tells Jeff she's Israeli, then whisks her away. The next day the girl is back and Jeff attempts to chat her up. With neither speaking a word of the other's language, it is an utter disaster.
#19 - Hair
Men Behaving Badly - Season 5 - Episode 1
Tony is away travelling around Europe. Meanwhile, Gary and Dorothy have a very romantic time and Dorothy decides that she'll move in with Gary. She also decides that Tony will have to leave the flat if he moves in! Tony comes home with a beard and is shocked to find a tidy flat with a fridge full of food instead of lager. Gary agonises about ways of breaking the news to Tony that he'll have to leave the flat.
#20 - The Good Pub Guide
Men Behaving Badly - Season 5 - Episode 2
Deborah has become interested in astrology. Tony thinks he can use this new interest as a way of getting her to sleep with him. Dorothy gives Gary a lesson in bad behaviour. Gary and Tony are horrified when they discover that Les has been sacked as manager of ""The Crown"". They're even more horrified when they learn that the new landlord plans to completely refurbish the pub. They set about finding a new 'local'. They also fill their flat with some strange mementoes of the 'old Crown'.
#21 - The Plastic Bag
Friday Night Dinner - Season 6 - Episode 2
Dad's obsessed with retrieving a plastic bag that's stuck up a tree. Jonny's sense of style is 'out of this world'. And Adam discovers hell hath no fury like his Mum scorned...
#22 - Elephants and Hens
Black Books - Season 3 - Episode 2
It is International Children's Book Week, and Bernard and Manny decide to write their own kids' classic and retire on the proceeds. Fran is off on a hen weekend, but still finds a way to fall out with Bernard and Manny.
Watch Now:Amazon
#23 - Nine and a Half Minutes
Coupling - Season 4 - Episode 1
One bar, three different points of view, the same nine and a half minutes. Susan and Steve are pregnant (mostly Susan), Patrick and Sally are discussing relationships (mostly Sally), and Jane has a blind date - but will his job be a problem? Meanwhile, in the skies above an Aegean island, terrible danger grows.
#24 - Split
Coupling - Season 3 - Episode 1
Steve and Susan have had an argument about their future, and Susan storms out of Steve's flat in tears. While Steve tries repeatedly to ring Susan, his courage failing every time, the girls are locked in a debate over the merits of 1471, and what it means if the phone "chirps". Eventually the tension at both ends of the phone gets too much. The boys and the girls set out for "the Temple of Woman': in the girls' case, a beauty salon; in the boys' case, a lap dancing club.
#26 - The Man with Two Legs
Coupling - Season 2 - Episode 1
Jeff finally gets to speak to Chrissy, the woman on the train whose leg he has been fancying for days, and tells her that he only has one leg, a lie which becomes ever harder to undo. Meanwhile, Sally is dating a "surgeon" called David, and Jeff wonders whether it would be easier.
Watch Now:Apple TV
#27 - Size Matters
Coupling - Season 1 - Episode 2
Susan invites Steve for a date at home, and offers to cook. Jeff warns him about 'The Sock Gap', and Patrick alerts him to her collection of remote controls. Somehow everyone's conversation seems to revolve around Patrick's size, and Jeff is asked by several people to accompany him to the toilet to check.
#28 - Drunk
Men Behaving Badly - Season 4 - Episode 5
Gary is supposed to be having a romantic meal with Dorothy, but he gets held up in the pub with Tony. Then Les announces a ""Beers of the World"" promotion and Gary and Tony have to help with the tasting. Will he ever get to the romantic meal?
#29 - The Cupboard of Patrick's Love
Coupling - Season 1 - Episode 6
Patrick has a cupboard of video tapes of his former girlfriends, not to mention Britt Ekland in The Wicker Man. Jeff is excited, but Steve is appalled, when he realizes that Susan must be amongst them. Susan is also horrified when she realizes this in the company of the other girls. Later on, she arrives at Patrick's, and is outraged at what she finds going on there.
#30 - Going Like a Bomb
'Allo 'Allo! - Season 5 - Episode 17
René escapes from the hospital and makes his way back to the café. Herr Flick sends Von Smallhausen undercover to the hospital mortuary to look for the Gestapo money. Meanwhile Helga has discovered that the money is forged. It's stuffed down Captain Bertorelli's trousers so that he can take it back to the café. Michelle reveals a new plan for the British airmen to escape in giant landmines, which will be dropped over England.
#31 - The Jet-Propelled Mother-in-Law
'Allo 'Allo! - Season 4 - Episode 6
The Germans arrest René, and the Colonel demands an explanation for the knockwursts with explosives in them. After a small lie, René is sent home with around a dozen knockwursts to hang in his kitchen. Meanwhile, the British have sent a spy camera with which the Resistance should be able to photograph the plans for the German invasion of Great Britain, but the camera landed in the vineyard of Monsieur Alphonse, and since the Germans commandeered the vineyard, the Resistance cannot go and look for the camera. This problem is solved when the General orders every peasant in Nouvion to work on the vineyard, which also leaves room for some assassination attempts on the General's life.
Watch Now:Apple TV
#32 - The Mouse
Friday Night Dinner - Season 2 - Episode 6
There's a mouse in the kitchen, Mum's hiding in the shed, Dad's in charge of the cooking, and Jim is delighted when he ends up invited to have dinner with the family.
#33 - The Girl with One Heart
Coupling - Season 3 - Episode 6
Susan has invited everyone over for dinner, which as we know is just asking for trouble. Steve is particularly worried because Susan has recently redecorated the bathroom, and removed the lock, thus robbing him of his Fortress of Solitude. Sally's worry is that Patrick is bringing his new girlfriend: she's frightened that she will overcompensate her feelings of hostility towards her new rival by being embarrassingly nice. Patrick dimly perceives there might be a problem, so has told Jennifer that Sally is a lesbian...
#34 - Remember This
Coupling - Season 3 - Episode 4
Sally is surprised to say the least when Patrick arrives at her flat at three in the morning to get rid of a spider for her. It turns out that he dreamt her distress call. What can this mean? Does Patrick subconsciously want to protect Sally? More shockingly, does Patrick have a subconscious? Encouraged by their friends, Sally and Patrick independently tell the story of how they first met...
#35 - Bed Time
Coupling - Season 4 - Episode 3
Since the dawn of time, men and women have been falling in love - and men have been trying to get straight home afterwards. Can fallen playboy Patrick Maitland ever find his way home from the Enchanted Glade of his one true love and get a decent night's kip? Kate Isitt as Sally makes her singing debut.
#36 - Circus of the Epidurals
Coupling - Season 4 - Episode 4
It's time to start attending antenatal classes. Susan need a back-up birth partner, Steve is haunted by the ghost of spanking lesbians past and Sally is seeking the solace of a string quartet. Meanwhile, Jane is trying to find a way to out-keen Oliver.
#37 - Gotcha
Coupling - Season 2 - Episode 6
It's one year since Steve and Susan's first date, and he is dreading questions about their future. And then a wedding invitation drops through their front door. Patrick meets an ex who appears to fail to recognize him.
#38 - My Dinner in Hell
Coupling - Season 2 - Episode 2
After watching an embarrassing program on TV with Susan, Steve bumps into his dream celebrity, Mariella Frostrup, in the bar, but it is not the dream encounter he might like, as she pours her drink down his trousers. Jane and Sally's attempt to make friends with her get him into more trouble as he then has to have dinner with Susan's liberal-minded parents, which turns into a nightmare as misunderstandings multiply.
#39 - Jane and the Truth Snake
Coupling - Season 2 - Episode 5
Jane gets the sack as a traffic reporter for a local radio station, and decides on a new career in children's entertainment. She starts rehearsing with a pink snake hand puppet, which turns out to have an unstoppable ability to tell the bald truth. Patrick is trying to dump his latest girlfriend Lynda, but when she says she's interested in a threesome, he desperately starts backtracking.
#40 - The Spirit of Christmas
The Goes Wrong Show - Season 1 - Episode 1
Santa’s come to town to solve a little girl’s holiday woes, but there’s no Xmas cheer as he drinks too much sherry, an elf is trapped in the set, and a magical snowman is eaten alive.
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
#41 - Cowardice
Men Behaving Badly - Season 5 - Episode 3
Gary makes himself look like a coward in a 'road rage' incident so he hatches a plan to make himself look macho. He hires someone to pretend to pick a fight with him in the pub but ends up fighting the wrong man. Deborah has a female friend staying with her. Gary and Tony are convinced that she's going through a ""lesbian phase""!
#42 - Jealousy
Men Behaving Badly - Season 6 - Episode 3
Tony becomes obsessively jealous when he thinks that Deborah fancies another man. Gary and Dorothy, Tony and Deborah spend a weekend in a caravan out in the country. Gary is trying to give up smoking.
#43 - The Freckle, The Key and the Couple Who Weren't
Coupling - Season 3 - Episode 5
Steve is troubled by a blemish on his bottom, which Susan hasn't noticed. James remembers where he knows Susan from. Jeff and Julia try spicing up their love life, but he loses the key to the handcuffs. Then Julia's chunky ex-boyfriend calls round, and he has to pretend that they're not a couple.
#44 - Her Best Friend's Bottom
Coupling - Season 2 - Episode 3
When Steve pops into Susan's flat, he accidentally sees Sally's naked bottom. This incident leads to dilemmas and awkwardness all round, which are dealt with in the classic sequence outlined by Jeff: the prickles (an embarrassed silence), the blurts (talking too fast), followed by the "head laugh".
#45 - My Brilliant Career
Men Behaving Badly - Season 1 - Episode 6
Gary thinks that he's been offered a new job so takes his staff out to dinner so that he can tell them that he's leaving! Will he be correct? Meanwhile, Dermot loses his job after he dangles a customer by the ankles.
#46 - Marriage
Men Behaving Badly - Season 3 - Episode 6
Tony resorts to bugging Deborah's flat in an attempt to find out what she sees in her new estate agent boyfriend. Gary takes Dorothy to the ""Pasta Pig"" for a romantic meal. Carried away by the wine and the atmosphere, he forgets himself and proposes! - Dorothy accepts!! Next morning, Gary has second thoughts but how can he escape marriage?
#47 - In Bed with Dorothy
Men Behaving Badly - Season 4 - Episode 6
Dorothy has had an operation to remove her appendix so Gary insists that she stays with him so that he can look after her. He isn't happy when she shows no interest in having sex with him. Tony is discovered wearing spectacles.
#48 - Party
Black Books - Season 3 - Episode 6
Fed up with being stuck in the dusty old bookshop on a Friday night, and with the hopes of meeting a delectable young lady at a party, Manny and Fran persuaded Bernard to attend a party. After a night of heavy drinking, a very sloshed Bernard has a nasty surprise waiting for him.
Watch Now:Amazon
#49 - The Big Day
Friday Night Dinner - Season 3 - Episode 6
It's Grandma's wedding day, and she's getting married to the horrible Mr Morris. The family are distraught, but will Grandma really say 'I do'?
#50 - The Exploding Bedpan
'Allo 'Allo! - Season 5 - Episode 16
Monsieur Alphonse is being interrogated by the Gestapo about the forged money. Colonel Von Strohm and Lieutenant Gruber are afraid that they'll be implicated in the theft of the money, so they plan to have Monsieur Alphonse poisoned before he talks. His dicky ticker results in him being sent to hospital. René pretends to have food poisoning so that he can get into the hospital as part of a plan to rescue Monsieur Alphonse.